


Will You Abandon Me?

by pristineungift



Series: The Portamis Collection [4]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drama, Episode Related, Friendship/Love, Internal Conflict, M/M, Missing Scene, Oblivious Aramis, Pining Porthos, Present Tense, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/pseuds/pristineungift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Porthos thinks about Aramis as he leaves the Court of Miracles.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>One Portamis drabble for every episode</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Will You Abandon Me?

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I was going to write a dramatic confrontation, but then this happened instead. Idek.
> 
> Though the other fics in this series are written in the past tense, this one is written in the present tense. It just felt right for the scene. This fic is also from Porthos’ POV.
> 
> You will notice that with this drabble, the title of the series has changed to 'The Portamis Collection.' I realized I was the only one using 'Poramis' and decided to stop being a special snowflake.

Flea’s words echoing in his ears, Porthos strolls down the Rue St. Jean and finds his friends waiting for him at the edge of the Court of Miracles. It is just as well. He is not of the Court any longer, and Flea made it clear that the Court would deal with Charon’s body in their own way, and that Porthos is not any more welcome there than another Musketeer would be.

He isn’t sure whether to be angry at that.

“Did you ever think we’d abandoned you?” Aramis asks, a smile on his lips, but something haunted in his eyes.

Loving Aramis has never been harder than it is in this moment. And Porthos does love Aramis. He has known that for a long time. Only a little longer than he has known that Aramis loves him too. But it wasn’t until recently – until Marsac – that he considered Aramis might come to see him as a lover.

Porthos wants that. Wants it so much that even as he was holding Flea, moving inside her, it felt like goodbye. He’s never denied himself the pleasures of the flesh, even after Aramis took hold of his heart, for it would do nothing but cause him misery. Why pine away, feverish and festering, waiting for something that was as unlikely as him being crowned King of France?

But now… now it is possible. It is tantalizingly close, the dream of having Aramis. Porthos lies near him at night, sleeps in his bed, bathes with him and drinks with him, fights with back pressed to back, and now he knows he might have that one thing that was always out of reach before.

And yet.

Porthos fought with Charon. He stole with him. Learned to cheat at cards from him. They bathed and drank together and slept together in the winter for warmth. They grew up together, as close as two brothers could be without blood to tie them.

And Charon is dead, by Aramis’ hand.

Aramis sits tensely on his horse, his shoulders a taut line. Porthos watches him, and he hears the sound Charon made when the blade went in his gut. Relives the final moments, the hissed words, the heat of blood and the chill of dying flesh. Charon was trying to kill Porthos, but in death he was not a rival, not a liar, not a traitor. He wasn’t even King of the Court anymore.

He was small, and heavy, and one of the last people alive who had known Porthos before he could grow a beard.

And Aramis can tell. He knows it. Porthos only need look up to see shades of Marsac written in the lines of Aramis’ face. There will be no easy rest for either of them tonight. Aramis will dream of the massacre, and Porthos… Porthos doesn’t know what he will dream of, but he knows that they will be together. He will follow Aramis to his boarding house and claim a side of Aramis’ bed, and they will sleep with their arms pressed together, and if either of them wakes up screaming, it won’t be the first time.

They will be together, because Porthos loves Aramis, and if their positions had been reversed, if Porthos had been able to shoot Marsac so that Aramis wouldn’t have to, he would have done it. _I’m not like you_ , Porthos had said to Charon right before Aramis arrived. _I’m not like you._

But he is like Aramis.

Aramis asks if Porthos ever thought himself abandoned, but what he really means is _Will you abandon me?_

Porthos smiles because Aramis needs him to, and because one day, when the river stone of grief in his chest is gone, there will be room for gratitude.

_Will you abandon me?_

“Never.”

 


End file.
